Compassion for the Tranquil
by DreadNot
Summary: AU. If Justice can bring a piece of the Fade to a Tranquil, is there a loophole? f!Hawke/Anders
1. Chapter 1

_AN: Written in response to the ubiquitous LJ kink meme, the prompt was for a female mage Hawke made Tranquil in early Act 2 with the requested twist being that the cure for Tranquility can be found through a Fade spirit arrangement a la Justice. _

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><p>Anders knew they were hiding something from him. He saw it in Varric's face in the Hanged Man when Aveline burst in on card night, shot a look in Anders' direction, and dragged Varric bodily out of his chair and up the stairs to his suite. When they returned, Varric's expression was as grim as Aveline's.<p>

"Blondie, we're gonna need you down at your clinic," he said gruffly and grabbed Fenris by the arm. "You're coming with us."

While he spoke, Aveline leaned down to murmur something in Isabela's ear that made the woman go ashen under her usual tan.

Anders stood up, grabbing his staff. "What is it?" The most likely suspects, considering who was absent were Merrill and… His stomach clenched. "Is it Hawke?"

Aveline gave him a push. "Your clinic, Anders. _Go!" _

Anders stumbled with the push – and that had been Aveline when she was holding back. She, Varric, Fenris, and Isabella hurried past him and nearly ran out of the tavern, leaving Anders dazed and terrified. He ran to the door to see them disappearing in the direction of the Gallows ferry dock.

Didn't want the apostate in the Gallows? Maybe that made some bit of sense, but still didn't explain _why._

He trudged down to the nearest passage into Darktown and left the sun behind to pace his clinic and wait. While he waited he conjured a spectacular list of scenarios for why they had left him behind without even a word of why.

After trying on _Hawke is dead_ for size, he decided that it made him too nauseated to allow in his reality for even a moment longer. Carver? Perhaps Carver had been hurt and they couldn't ask an apostate mage to heal him in the middle of the Gallows. Right, and Carver just _loved_him. Perhaps Merrill had gotten herself into trouble and they were trying to keep the apostate count down right in the Knight-Commander's face. Why bring Fenris to help Merrill then? He bore the little blood mage no more love than Anders had for her.

He scrubbed his face with his hands, folded blankets, paced, and started to think of more ridiculous scenarios. The Gallows had been invaded by monster kittens and they didn't trust him to fight them rather than bring them home and give them all absurd names. No, he'd only keep a half dozen at the most. Perhaps only two if they had a serious yen for human flesh.

They were planning a surprise name day party and Meredith was going to jump out of a giant cake. No, his name day wasn't for months. And he didn't want to picture Meredith out of her armor.

Giant birds! They were trying to save him from being picked up by giant ravens drawn irresistibly to his pauldrons, mistaking him for a hatchling and flying him…

_Shit._It wasn't working. It was just pathetic.

He moved a barrel to have a clear view of the two doors into his clinic and sat, waiting, his staff over his knees.

Four years – charitably, maybe they were only four hours – passed before Anders heard armor rattling on the stairs leading up to the landing outside his clinic. He tensed, listening to pick out how many sets. Not a full templar squad's worth, he was sure of that.

Then he heard Aveline's voice and relaxed slightly. If anything, she sounded subdued, but not urgent.

She came in first with Carver – maybe he had been right after all – close behind her. They both looked grim, but Carver let Aveline do the talking.

"Anders," she said carefully. "We have something you have to see, but you have to keep that spirit under control. Do you understand me?"

He frowned. "Just drop the other boot already. This is worse than every time I knew the templars were just outside my door waiting to pounce to take me back to the Circle. What happened?"

Carver edged out from behind Aveline and swallowed hard when Aveline looked to him. "It's my sister," he said uncomfortably.

"What?" He tried to push past them to see who was waiting outside, but Aveline caught his arm and Carver put a hand on his staff – his _staff! _

"Anders," she said again. "Your word. I need it now. You _must_control the spirit."

Now he was panicking, his breath coming fast, his heart beating faster. What was so bad that they had to get him to promise to—

"Maker no," he moaned and jerked free of Aveline's grasp, dropping his staff much to Carver's surprise, running for the clinic door to find Marian.

Oh, sweet Andraste, no.

She stood flanked by Varric and Fenris, Isabela and Merrill at her back as silent guardians. She was unhurt, but not unharmed.

The sight of the Tranquil brand on her forehead nearly drove him to his knees before the swell of righteous rage burned strength into his spine. Justice clawed toward the surface of their mind, his thoughts a red wash of abhorrence.

**"No!"** they screamed together, Anders' skin crackling with Justice's power, fissures opening that let the pure energy of the Fade spirit wash out into the Darktown gloom, lighting the scene an unearthly blue. **"I will kill them all. So many lost, so many good people. I will not let them live!" **

He barely heard Aveline snap, "Carver!" through the haze of anger and justified need to bring justice to those who had destroyed a powerful and conscientious mage out of fear and barely veiled evil.

Carver gripped one of his arms, Aveline the other. The templar thrust the order's anti-magic into Anders, draining his mana and forcing the spirit back a little at a time while Aveline repeated over and over in his ear that Hawke was safe, she was with them, and that if he didn't calm down _right bloody now_someone was going to get hurt and he would never forgive himself if it was Hawke.

What succeeded where templar skills and Aveline's exhortations could not was Marian's question. "What the bloody hell are you three doing?"

Everything stopped. Marian stepped forward and cupped Anders' face between her hands. Oh, her hands, so small, so soft, so warm. Anders looked down at her with tears tracking down his cheeks and murmured her name as a question.

"Remember Karl?" she said. "I understand now. It's Justice."

He remembered Karl. And he remembered how quickly Karl faded after Justice's power was gone.

"I can't do it again," he said brokenly. "Don't ask me to. I can't kill you."

"You sure as Void can't," Carver growled. "I didn't risk everything to get my sister out of the Gallows just to let you murder her."

"Carver," Marian said, looking up at her brother. "Don't make me live like this. Ple—"

The light left her eyes and her hands slipped away from Anders' cheeks. "I am supposed to stay at the Gallows," she said dully.

Isabela put an arm around Merrill's shoulders and held her when she sobbed, letting her turn her face away from the sight of this broken reunion.

"No," Carver said, shaking his head. "No. No, mother wouldn't have it." He swept the group with a glare. "None of you are going to 'put her out of her misery,' do you hear me?"

"I can't cure this in my clinic," Anders rasped. He wanted to shake Marian, to shout at her, to do anything to rouse her from her blankness, but it would do nothing but jostle her and break his own heart still further.

"Marethari," Merrill said softly, then repeated herself more loudly. "Keeper Marethari. We can take her to the Dalish. If Marethari knows of anything, even rumors, she'll tell us for Hawke. Hawke was touched by Asha'bellanar, that has to mean something."

Aveline nodded. "It's something, and it's safer for her there than here where the templars might stumble over her at any time."

Carver tightened his jaw and surveyed his sister's cohorts before jerking his head in a sharp nod. "Do it. I can't go with you. I have to get back to the Gallows before it's obvious I helped her get away. Keran can't cover for me forever."

He released Anders. "Marian. Look at me."

She turned her face up to her brother, waiting patiently, forever patiently.

"You are to go with these people. Listen to them as you would to a templar, do you understand me."

"Yes, Carver," she said.

For all that Carver had always hated his sister's primacy, he looked ill at her subservience now. He seemed ready to say something else to her, but shook his head and looked instead to Aveline. "Go. Take her to the Dalish. I'll do what I can at the Gallows."

• • •

Usually they broke down into a smaller group, but this time Hawke traveled to Sundermount protected by all of her companions. None of them were willing to let her out of their sight until there was some resolution to this horror.

Anders walked behind her the entire way. He could not trust himself to see her face, to see that brand, and not lose himself to Justice again. He warred with himself. If he let Justice out, let him have his way, it would bring Marian back again, even if it was only for a little while. But with Justice came his fury, and that was too much for Anders to face.

Merrill trotted up beside him as the path that would lead them to her clan came into view up ahead. "We have to tell Marethari about you," she said. "She should know that you can bring her back at least a little."

"I can't bring her back," Anders said bitterly. "That's all Justice. I'm just, I don't know, the cup he's poured in. Sometimes he sloshes out."

"And all over Hawke," Merrill mused. "Maybe you should slosh on Hawke more."

Anders turned his head to look down at her, but she was honestly oblivious to any kind of double meaning in what she had just said.

"No, Merrill," he said dryly. "No sloshing. Sloshing is bad."

"Oh I don't think so," she said. "After all, the last time you sloshed on her, she came to."

Anders heard Isabela cough to suppress a laugh and shot her a glare over his shoulder. She raised her hands to silently protest her innocence, leaving him to look back down at Merrill.

"Do you honestly not know what you're saying?" he asked. How did a blood mage manage such blithe innocence? Weren't the two things diametrically opposed?

"What? I was just saying that if your spirit's power helps reconnect her to the Beyond, maybe she should be around him more."

"That—" he stopped walking. "You might have something there. I don't know what yet, but… _something." _

"Oh good," she said, turning to walk backwards to talk to him. "Because I hate when I don't have anything at all. Isn't it better to have something than nothing? Unless it's the plague. Then it's better to have nothing, but we weren't talking about the plague, so I think this is better."

Anders scrubbed his hands on his pants and sighed before jogging to catch up with her. "Let's just see what Marethari thinks about it."

• • •

The Dalish did not greet the group warmly, casting dark glances at Merrill and staring openly at the brand on Hawke's forehead. They parted before the outsiders, and Anders could see that they counted Merrill as an outsider now as well, letting them pass through the camp to where Keeper Marethari waited for them.

"Merrill, have you changed-" she began, but stopped when she saw Hawke, murmuring mournfully _"Emma ir abelas." _

"Keeper," Merrill said, wringing her hands fitfully. "You can see why we're here."

"I see, child, but there is no cure for this," Marethari said in the tones of someone delivering news of a loved one's death.

"But there's something," Anders cut in. "We brought her back for a few moments. We thought you might have some ideas for how to make it last longer."

Marethari gestured the group toward a circle of benches, signaling one of the elves to bring them water laced with restorative herbs.

She listened to the story, giving Anders a piercing look when Justice was explained to her and how his manifestation had restored Marian's contact with the Fade, albeit fleetingly.

"We thought that maybe you would have an idea of how we could do that for Marian all the time," Merrill said hopefully. "She's a good person, Keeper, and Asha'bellanar knows her name. Surely we can't let her stay like this. She has helped us and she has helped Feynriel, and so many other people."

Marethari's expression grew grim. "Feynriel is not well, Merrill. If you had not come to me, I would have come to you in the city. But perhaps there is an opportunity here if you and your friends are as daring as I think you are.

"Feynriel has fallen into a deep sleep and does not wake. I fear that he is trapped in his dreams, and if he is not soon rescued, he will fall to the demons that hunt him and we will be faced with a truly terrible power. I will perform an ancient Elvehn rite to send you and your companions into the Beyond. Perhaps you will find the answer for your friend there, but you must save Feynriel from the demons."

She swept her gaze around the assembled friends. "Will you do this?"

Merrill nodded immediately, as did Anders. Aveline was stern-faced when she said, "Yes."

Varric smiled. "A dwarf in the Fade. Now there's a story I want to tell."

Isabela shrugged. "If I don't they won't pick up my tab at the Hanged Man any more. I'm in."

Fenris spat on the ground by his feet and grudgingly growled. "For Hawke."


	2. Chapter 2

They left Marian with the Dalish. Anders didn't feel good about it, but ultimately they all agreed that Marian as she was would be a liability in combat – she couldn't fight, and she would distract them all with their concern for her safety.

It felt as though the center had fallen out of their world to have to think of Marian Hawke as a liability. It cast a pall on their trip back to Kirkwall and the alienage, where Marethari said the ritual would have a better chance of helping Feynriel.

Each friend fretted in his or her own way.

"Did I ever tell you about the man I met with two penises?" Isabela offered at one point. Everyone knew Isabela's preferred methods of handling worry, but there was no liquor to be had.

Aveline and Fenris replied in unison, "Don't." The two warriors had opted for a brood-off. Anders' money was on Fenris, but Anders was certain Aveline could win by simply pounding him over the head with her shield.

"Oh, but I want to hear it," Merrill piped up. "I've never seen that. Was he human? Does that happen often with human men? How did he—?"

"Merrill, please," Aveline sighed. "Save it for later."

Varric had trotted a bit faster to run at Merrill's side. "It's okay, Daisy, they're just worried. We all are."

"I know," Merrill said. "But all this quiet running and grim faces and no talking just leaves me alone with me, and me – I don't like what I'm thinking. I'd rather hear about the man with two penises."

"No!" snapped Aveline.

Varric put a hand on Merrill's arm to slow her down enough to let them drop to the back of the group. Easier with his shorter legs anyway. "Tell you what, Daisy, I'll tell you a different story. I have a good one about the Paragon and the nug wrangler."

Anders turned his attention inward. All he had to do was put one foot in front of the other, keep breathing, and _not_ think about Marian and the livid scar on her forehead. Maybe there was a time that he had thought the Chantry symbol lovely, poetic even, but that had been before he had known the Tranquil.

He knew he wasn't the only one in their group who cared for Marian – loved her even – but he felt that his bond to her was greatest. She kept him centered, no matter what Justice might believe. He had thought they might have something….

With a growl of disgust at himself he scrubbed his hand over his eyes and dropped back to listen to Varric recounting Paragon Bemot's adventures with a nug stampede through the middle of Orzammar's Assembly chambers. 

• • •

Watching the city elves acknowledge Marethari's arrival was a spectacle Anders thought he might never forget. The woman moved among them and the usually cynical elves bowed, knelt, or inclined their heads in recognition of a power and wisdom that their people had not fully relinquished. Some of them would tell their children of the day a Dalish Keeper stood under the vhendadahl in Kirkwall.

None of them knew that greater significance of that day. When elves and humans came together to save the world from a threat few could comprehend.

Feynriel's mother, Arianni, showed them into her house, dark and hopeless as other alienage homes. As dirty as Merrill's despite the battle both women fought against the creeping dirt and the mold that thrived in the city's damp.

The others deferred to Anders and Merrill in this without Hawke to lead them. Arianni was dismayed that Hawke herself had not come to help Feynriel, but Marethari soothed her.

"Hawke is too ill to come, but she trusts these men and women with her life," Marethari told her. "You can do no less."

Taking Anders and Merrill aside, "to prepare," she had told Arianni, she issued her warning.

"Feynriel cannot become an abomination. The destruction that a somniari possessed by a demon would cause is unimaginable. If you cannot save him from the demons, you must kill him yourself."

Her expression grew troubled, knowing her words would not sit well given their context. "A death in the Fade will make him Tranquil."

Anders opened his mouth to protest, but he held up a silencing hand. "I know. I know what you are doing for your friend, but you must understand that this is not the Chantry's thoughtless fear. Feynriel is at risk right now. If he falls, the demon inside him will spread terror and destruction throughout Thedas and its first act will be to kill you and all your companions here. There will be no one left to care for your friend, Hawke."

She held his eyes and then Merrill's. "If you cannot save him, save the innocents the demon will harm."

Merrill fidgeted with her tabard before nodding. "I understand, Keeper."

Anders scowled. "As a last resort. But I will do everything I can to never reach that point."

Marethari smiled. "From what I have seen of your friend Hawke, she would have said the same thing. Now you must choose who will go with you. I haven't the power to send everyone into the Beyond with you. I assume you and Merrill will go, choose two others, but remember, you will all be tempted by the demons who stalk Feynriel."

Given his druthers, Anders would have left Merrill behind. The girl had already shown herself all too willing to treat with demons. He couldn't see how that would help a boy under siege by demons.

Isabela shrugged when the two mages came to ask who else would come. "I never give into temptation."

"That's not much reassurance," said Anders, who had treated her far too often for temptation-caused ailments.

Aveline shook her head. "I can't imagine what aid I could offer in a realm of dreams and magic."

Fenris grimaced, disappointed by Aveline's response. "I have no desire to explore the Fade, but for Hawke I will go."

"Looks like I'll stay here with Aveline," Varric said. "But the next time you go traipsing on a magical journey through the Fade, I'm coming along."

"My word on it," Anders said wryly.

He indicated Fenris, Isabela, Merrill, and himself to Marethari. "We have our four." 

• • •

The worst part about waking in the Fade for Anders was the sense of being nothing more than an observer behind his own eyes. The breath of the Fade had brought Justice to the fore and there was nothing he could do about it.

This was what it was like to be fully possessed all the time. It strengthened his determination to help Feynriel before they took their opportunity to help Hawke.

The others seemed oblivious to the way the false Templar Hall wavered around them. Justice, and thus Anders, could feel Feynriel's mind straining under the demons' assaults.

**"We must hurry,"** Justice told them, pushing forward to lead the way.

"Um… Anders," Merrill ventured. "You're sloshing."

**"I am Justice. Anders told you of me." **

Merrill hurried to keep up with his longer strides."Well, yes," she said. "But you haven't been one for conversation. Is Anders still in there? Yoo hoo, Anders?"

Isabela laughed. "Forget that, Kitten. Justice. While you're feeling like talking, can we talk about that no-drinking thing you've put on Anders? He was much more fun in Denerim when he could drink."

Fenris and Justice said together, **"No." **

Isabela actually laughed. "Look! We got them to agree. Too bad it was on something that's no fun at all. Just think of what we could do…."

Fenris literally growled. "Focus! We are not here to play."

For a moment Justice and Fenris shared a look and a grudging nod of agreement before the spirit led them forward to an open courtyard where a demon awaited.

Once again in perfect accord, Fenris and Justice unleashed their attacks before the demon could speak a word.

Merrill complained, "We could have _talked_ to him!" but the time for talk was over.

When the last shade had fluttered to nothingness and the sloth demon had been destroyed, Justice healed his companions and pointed up the stairs to either side of them. **"I can feel the demons, pulling Feynriel between them. We must help him before he is torn to pieces." **

"And then what?" This from Isabela."That helps him, but how does it help Hawke."

Justice walked away from her, ascending the stairs. **"Then we ask him to do what is just and help us in turn." **

Justice led them down a long hall, ignoring the doors that lined either side. Anders thought Hawke's curiosity would have driven her to look inside the closed doors, to see what Feynriel's dreaming mind conjured, but Justice had never been plagued by curiosity.

He flung the door open at the end of the hall and walked through the illusion the demon tried to spin.

**"This is not Marethari,"** he thundered, startling the boy and earning a hard look from the false Keeper.

Internally Anders flinched and tried to tell Justice not to hurt the boy, to let him come to the understanding on his own, but it was too late. Feynriel looked at Marethari with dawning terror before he fled through the wall, leaving Justice and the others in the presence of an angry pride demon.

"Filthy little spirit," it spat at Justice. "With my power joined to his, Feynriel would have changed the world!"

**"In your image,"** Justice countered. **"Twisted, corrupted, filled with self-love and hate of all others." **

"You think this slave would choose you over his freedom?"

_Actually no,_ thought Anders. _But maybe for Hawke._

"Cast your eyes elsewhere, demon," Fenris said, standing tall. "I won my freedom from the magisters long ago."

"But you fear them still," the demon almost purred. "They have left their marks on your body and your mind. With my aid, you could be free forever. You could have power enough to chain any who would chain you."

Justice could feel the pull of the demon's power, wrapping Fenris, swaddling him in false promises. **"If you help it,"** he warned, **"you will be its slave of your own choosing."** With some prodding from Anders, the spirit added, **"And you will betray Hawke, who needs you more than anyone has ever needed you before." **

Fueled by Anders' desperate fear for Hawke, Justice cut through the web of lies the demon was spinning around Fenris. The power to break such a powerful allure staggered the human body Justice wore, but it was enough.

Fenris bared his teeth in a feral snarl and launched himself at the demon in a blur of steel and lyrium fire.

Merrill moved to put her back against Justice's letting him lean against her while they fended off the ghostly elves and spirits that the pride demon summoned, while Fenris and Isabela engaged them directly.

Anders felt as though the Maker had to be smiling on them when they emerged from the fight cut up, but still united in their goal to rescue Feynriel and find help for Hawke.

He also wished the Maker would smile just a little bit more and let him be more than a passenger behind his eyes. He would _never_ agree to come into the Fade again. Never unless Hawke needed him again, he admitted to himself.

Fool.

There were rage demons waiting for them in the courtyard. Of course there were, because slaying a sloth demon, a pride demon, and their various hangers on wasn't enough to get through the thick not-really-skulls of rage demons to dissuade them from attacking where they were outclassed.

Justice shared with him that rage demons were the butt of many jokes among spirits that actually had sense of humor. Not that Justice had one, but he could _observe._

Not for the first time Anders wondered how he had thought this joining was a good idea.

_Because,_ Justice silently reminded him, _you care what happens to other mages._

_Oh yes. That._

They left the courtyard as empty of demons as Feynriel had undoubtedly first dreamed it, climbing the stairs to a door that fairly vibrated with malignant power. It was a wonder the others couldn't feel it, but Isabela blithely reached out to open it before Justice caught her wrist.

**"There is another demon behind this door. You saw the lies and promises the other tried with Fenris. Be on your guard." **

He released Isabela's hand and let her push open the door, showing a scene that pierced Anders' heart – a boy and his father. Of course Feynriel wanted his father, wanted to be loved and accepted. Of course….

This time Justice let Anders give him the words to draw Feynriel's attention to the lie spun around him.

**"Your father has never acknowledged you as his son. Do not trust him." **

The child Feynriel furrowed his brow and tilted his head up at the illusion of his father. "Why are you lying to me?"

The demon tried to regain control of the situation with another lie, one Feynriel saw through without Justice's help. "Don't listen, Son. She's always been ashamed of you. She wanted you gone so she could go back to the Dalish. I'm the one who loves you."

Feynriel shook his head and Justice could feel him start to shake off the lies and illusion with it. "But… why can't I remember you?"

**"This is a trick, Feynriel. He wants something from you." **

Feynriel's expression cleared as he saw through to the truth. "Why…? That's right! I spent my whole childhood waiting for you."

"Your mother never allowed—"

"My mother loves me! She showed me the letters she wrote you. You never wrote back."

The desire demon's illusion crumbled, sending Feynriel retreating to some other part of his dream where he felt safer.

"You!" She glared at Justice. "You turned him against me! You are nothing here, just a cringing thing."

She reached out to Isabela. "Take away my pets and I will take away yours. What say you, pirate queen? The open water beckons. A two-mast brigandine, square-main topsail… A hundred well-built lads to answer your every whim."

_A hundred? Isn't that excessive even for Isabela?_ Anders' thought was utterly inappropriate to the severity of the situation, but if he had been the one controlling his body, he still would have laughed.

What wasn't at all funny was the realization that Isabela was going to say yes. What was still less funny, moving into the realm of anti-funny, was the next realization when Justice tried to cut through the demon's fascination on Isabela and found that he had used too much of his power with the pride demon.

The effort of simply trying to break the spell made Justice's legs give out under him, only Merrill's grip on his collar keeping him from falling entirely.

Isabela shrugged and said "I like big boats. I cannot lie," before drawing her blades.

"Don't kill her," Anders said, realizing he had control while Justice drew raw power from the Fade around him. "We might need her."

"Don't kill her?" Fenris rasped in disbelief as Isabela disappeared and reappeared behind him to sink her daggers in his back.

"Don't kill her!" Merrill echoed in a desperate shriek before she cast a spell that made the ground catch Isabela in an unyielding grasp that gave Fenris time to sweep his sword through the desire demon.

Anders fumbled a flask from his belt and drank the bitter blue lyrium potion down, restoring mana, but also restoring Justice, who pushed him back to the passenger role before rising up in a tower of wrath, raining fire down into the room, sending molten rocks crashing the desire demon into the floor, and making the very fabric of the Fade ripple with the magic he sent crashing into their enemies.

Isabela, trapped in a stone grip with only her head and shoulders free, had been cursing their names, their parentage, Merrill's blind willingness to follow a bunch of stupid men, Anders' masturbatory habits, and Fenris' undoubtedly small penis, fell silent when the desire demon was destroyed.

"Er…" she looked down at the stone that held her. "If I say I didn't mean it, will you let me loose?"

For once Merrill and Fenris both looked to Justice, who said, **"Release her. The spell is gone."**

Merrill banished the spell and Isabela looked abashed while she twisted one toe on the ground. "I'm sure you're not small, Fenris. And Anders probably doesn't wank in front of little old ladies."

Anders wanted to say _just the once, but it was an accident,_ but Justice was back in control of the body and wasn't about to allow that kind of frivolity.

Fenris slung his sword back over his shoulder and grunted. "I won't be issuing you an invitation to see," he told her before turning his back on all of them.

Justice leaned heavily on Anders' staff, still weakened by the amount of energy he had exerted to try to protect Fenris and Isabela from the demons' lures. He used it to brace himself as he walked back to the courtyard where nothing more menacing than Feynriel himself waited.

"I thought that in my dreams it would be Hawke who rescued me," Feynriel said to the companions as they descended the stairs. "But it seems I owe you all my life.

"The Fade feels different now. I see the stitches, the seams holding it together. I feel I could wake at any moment. I see now why the Chantry fears us. I've heard tales of magisters who stalked the dreams of their enemies and used their own dreams to destroy them."

He squared his shoulders and looked like a man for the first time, not a boy. "I must master it, I must find someone to study under. The Dalish do not have what I need. Perhaps Tevinter. If these powers can be trained it would be there."

Behind them, Isabela put a restraining hand on Fenris' arm at the mention of Tevinter.

Feynriel looked ready to go, and at Anders' panicked rattling inside the cage of his skull, Justice ceded control of the body to him again.

"Wait. Before you end this dream, we need your help." He put a hand out to touch Feynriel's arm and felt, through Justice, the sheer power the young mage held. "You said you thought it would be Hawke who helped you, and she would have, but she can't help anyone right now. This is your chance to help her."

Feynriel looked down at the hand on his arm, letting Anders know that just as he could sense Feynriel's power, Feynriel could feel Anders' dual occupancy.

"What do you need from me?" he asked cautiously.

"We need you to move this dream to another part of the Fade. There are spirits there. Not like the demons who invaded your dream. I… we think that one of them might provide help for Hawke."

"We do?" Merrill asked.

"That's news to me," Isabela added and Anders cursed them for their obstructionism.

Fenris added to the mess. "When did you decide this, mage?"

"When we got here, okay?" Anders said. "It was Justice. And what I know about one of the Hero of Ferelden's companions. I just want to go where the spirits of virtues sometimes gather. The worst thing any of you have to worry about is a sprit of Truth taking an interest in you."

Isabela actually paled under her tan, but the objections stopped.

"Please, Feynriel," Anders said, looking back into the man's eyes. "For Hawke. For what she has done for you, and for what we did for you in her name."

Feynriel looked from one companion to another, searching their expressions before he nodded. "For Hawke."

That seemed to be the theme of the day.


	3. Chapter 3

The island in the Fade that Justice guided Feynriel to looked like exactly that – an island in a silver ocean. A hundred feet from shore, the silvery water that lapped at the gray shores spilled away endlessly into empty haze. And always in the distance, the Black City, a reminder of perfection lost.

The small territory itself was a maze of mist-draped columns, some standing, some tilted to lean against their neighbors, a few crumbled and fallen. The ground was barren, rocky, but incongruously pale flowers, petals just touched with blue, pushed up around the base of some columns, filling the still air with a subtle fragrance that stirred memories of comfort, of safety.

For Anders, a lullaby and his mother's arms, barely remembered from his time before the Circle. For Merrill, the gentle sway of an aravel as they traveled the Fereldan forests. For Isabela, a sun-drenched day, the ocean swells lifting and dropping her ship like a lover allowing her to ride at her leisure. For Fenris, blue eyes and a promise that if the magisters came, she would stand beside him.

Feynriel fell back against a column and slid to sit braced against it.

"That took too much out of me. I have to rest." He smiled, despite his obvious fatigue. "But I did it."

"Should we stay here?" Merrill asked. "Should we leave him alone? Is it safe?"

Justice was already walking. **"Leave him. This is a place no demon will dare violate." **

Fenris looked between Feynriel and Justice, torn between two mages, and turned to stalk after the one that might help Hawke.

Isabela rolled her eyes. "And they say pirates don't have manners. Thanks for getting us here. We'll be back as soon as we can. Come on, Merrill."

She caught Merrill and pulled the mage with her, following Justice through the maze of columns.

Merrill twisted to call back to Feynriel, "Thank you! We'll be back soon. Just get some rest. Smell the flowers. Don't wake up!" As he fell out of sight she said, "I wonder what would happen if he fell asleep here. Would he start dreaming? Could he bring a different part of the Beyond to this part of the Beyond? And could he fall asleep and dream in that one too? Oh, I could get lost in my own head thinking of that."

They hurried to catch up with Justice and Fenris, weaving through the columns until they came to a clearing in the center of the island.

Roughly circular, it was marked by a dozen stone benches along its circumference. Anders noted in the moment that Justice swept his gaze through the clearing that the center was set with a mosaic of the Maker's symbol, a sun blazing within a circle. He wondered if this was the remnant of someone's dream that the spirits had taken as their home, or if they had somehow created it together.

**"We created this,"** Justice said aloud. He addressed the empty benches. **"I call you to this place, brethren. I seek counsel from the virtues. Come Truth. Come Valor. Come Fortitude, Peace, Compassion, and Faith."**

Fenris muttered something under his breath as figures faded into being on the benches, translucent, ethereal, but almost human.

_"Justice,"_ breathed one. _"What have you done?" _

Another – Truth, Justice's thought supplied to Anders – rose from the bench and drifted across to raise an ethereal hand to brush Anders' cheek. Anders felt the brush to the depths of his soul and quailed under the spirit's regard. _"You have changed, Justice." _

**"The world on the other side of the Veil is not as immutable as we think it is from here,"** Justice said. **"Living in it… changes one." **

"Do we get an introduction?" Isabela asked. "And when are you going to get to the point?"

Fenris added, "Feynriel cannot keep us here indefinitely. Make your case, spirit, before he wakes."

The spirits turned their attention to the living visitors, all rising from the benches to drift closer.

Merrill caught Fenris' wrist as he reached for his sword. "Don't. We're guests here. I'd be put out with you if you drew a sword in my house and I'm not even a spirit."

Isabela murmured, "That's my girl," when Merrill stood fast under Fenris' glare until he dropped his hand.

The first spirit, though translucent, appeared to be a man wearing heavy armor with a helmet that fully covered his face save for a narrow eye slit. It approached Fenris.

_"Would you duel?" _ it asked.

**"Valor. We are not here to duel. We are here seeking help for one who has helped bring justice in the world beyond the Veil. She has had the Fade taken from her."**

Fenris tried to see past the slits, to see the spirit's eyes, half expecting the helmet to be empty, but the spirit met his gaze with colorless eyes that blazed with their challenge. "I would duel you if it would help my friend," he said. "Will you help her?"

_"No," _ said Valor. _"That is not my role." _

Another spirit, female in figure, but robed to shadow any face it might have, drifted to Isabela and brushed its hand down her arm. _"No faith in yourself to be the woman you think you should be," _ the spirit said in a voice like chiming bells. _"But you have faith in someone. A name… Hawke. You have faith in her." _

"Yes," said Isabela, obviously shaken, perhaps by the observation, perhaps by the intimacy of the spirit's touch _past_ the physical plane. "I do. Sometimes I don't know why, but I do."

Merrill was clearly torn between eagerness and nervousness about talking to a spirit that was not a demon. A spirit wasn't sloshing out of Anders at least. She fidgeted as a new spirit came to examine her. To Merrill the softly glowing figure looked like an elven woman, like someone she faintly remembered and had loved at some time, but somehow forgotten.

The figure reached out to touch her cheek the way Truth had touched Anders, but stopped, fingers hovering above her skin as though they had reached some barrier. _"You have known the touch of demons," _ the spirit observed. _"Child, you can never know peace with their touch on your soul." _

The spirit withdrew, leaving Merrill bereft. "But wait," she said, reaching out toward the spirit. "Can't you help us?"

The spirit shook its head. _"I cannot bring peace where it has already been rejected. The waking world is not for me."_

"I thought that's what you did," Isabela protested. "Aren't you supposed to beat people with peace sticks like Justice does with his blazing rage of ragey-ness?"

Anders earnestly wished he could have use of their mouth for a moment. _Peace sticks_ and _blazing rage of ragey-ness _should not be allowed to pass without comment. And mockery.

_"What help would you have of us, Justice?" _ asked the figure of a man, his face a shifting composite of faces that all bore the unifying stamp of endurance, of perseverance, of Fortitude.

**"My power on the other side of the Veil is limited by this body. I cannot be a constant blaze of the Fade in the waking world, but it is that which restores our friend for moments at a time. Without it, she is worse than dead. With it, she is a force of valor, truth, fortitude, and compassion."** Anders head turned toward Peace and Faith. **"Her faith is quiet, I do not know it, but she is not a woman of peace. She understands that in a world of injustice, there cannot yet be peace, but she struggles for it. She would dream of you again if she were restored." **

The last spirit, the one who had been silent and only watched, drifted forward, the other spirits parting for the wispy thing, child-sized and slight. _"Is that why you are all here?" _ it asked. _"For Justice's reasons?" _

Fenris snorted. "No. I'm here for my own reasons, but we are all here for Hawke."

Isabela shrugged. "What he said."

"I'm here for Hawke. She's a good person, spirits. We don't always agree, but she's…" Merrill bit her lip. "She's one of the best people I've ever known, and she doesn't deserve what they did to her. It was _wrong!"_

**"It was unjust."**

_"What would you have us do?" _ asked the child spirit. _"We are not healers or mages. We cannot touch her through the Veil and you say she has been cut off from the Fade. We are but spirits, though it pains me to hear of a good woman whose fate causes you all such sorrow." _

Anders could feel Justice's hope and realized that this was the spirit he had most wanted to engage. **"Return with us. Join with her. Bridge the gap between her spirit and the Fade."**

The other spirits rustled, a susurrus of conversation running among them like a wavelet on an otherwise calm pond.

_"We cannot do that," _ said the spirit of Valor. _"Our place is here. We must bring our virtues to the sleepers, to the mages, to all who seek us in the Fade." _

_"And what of those who need us beyond the Veil?" _asked the child spirit.

It floated toward Fenris and held its hands out to him in an invitation to take them. He hesitated until Merrill trod on his bare foot. Grudgingly, he let the small spirit take his hands.

He might have flinched, or growled, or at least glared, but the spirit's touch on his soul was delicate, even considerate.

_"Such loss," _ the spirit whispered. _"And fear. And I see what memories of comfort the flowers here bring you." _

It released his hands. _"Thank you." _

It turned to Isabela and held out its hands to her. After a moment's hesitation remembering Faith's touch, she took them.

_"Trust where you do not feel you deserve it. Friendship without judgment. Treasures a pirate cannot simply plunder." _

It let her go. _"Thank you." _

Merrill already had her hands out when the spirit turned to her. It seemed almost cautious when it took her hands, sighing with whatever it saw or learned. _"A mage who has never wavered in what she thinks is right. Never compromised herself. How you long to be that strong." _

Merrill felt its touch tighten, like a friend's squeeze before it released her hands, leaving her feeling as deeply examined as ever she had been by a demon, but not judged. _"Thank you." _

Lastly it drifted over to Justice, stretching its arms up to put its hands on his cheeks much as Truth had. _"Justice… oh Justice, how you burn for this crime committed against her. Laws violated, right crushed under an iron heel, and… Justice has learned…."_ Justice shook his head before the spirit could reveal what he had learned.

It did not press on to tell them. _"Anders, Justice-ridden… It is so hard for you, so lonely. Justice's demands, your heart, this woman. Your heart breaks." _

"So his heart is breaking," Fenris snapped, sundering the spell the spirit had seemed to have cast over the group. "It doesn't matter. Hasn't anyone else noticed that he wants to make Hawke an _abomination?"_ He shouted the last word. "Someone here has to say no! We've seen how well it has worked for Anders."

_"An abomination?"_ the little spirit asked. It sounded curious, not angry or hurt. _"Would you fear an abomination of compassion, warrior?"_

Fenris opened his mouth to say of course, but apparently his brain kicked in before the words could drop from his lips. "Compassion?"

**"Compassion,"** Justice said. **"This is the one I had hoped would take up our cause." **

Isabela shifted from foot to foot before asking, "Won't that make Hawke, oh, I don't know, a little soft?"

"Do you like her better Tranquil?" Merrill asked tartly. "Because I don't. I think it's brilliant."

"Of course the blood mage thinks it's brilliant," Fenris sneered.

"Well, no, I don't like her better Tranquil," Isabela mused, ignoring Fenris. "And I can't see that a spirit of compassion is going to be as much of a killjoy as Justice." She looked down at Compassion. "Would you let Hawke drink? Have a lover?" She looked pointedly at Justice, _"Bathe?"_

_"Of course. She is human. She must have a human life."_

"Then she's got my vote," Isabela said, simultaneously bestowing a gender on the spirit.

"Mine too," said Merrill.

Anders was voting yes, albeit silently. All eyes turned to Fenris.

"This isn't right!" he snapped.

**"It is just."**

"Shut up!" He turned away from them all, pacing, raking his hands through his hair, seeming to come to one decision before turning on his heel, leaving the choice hanging while he argued with himself.

"This is for life," he tried.

"So is being Tranquil," Merrill countered.

"She'll hate us for it."

Isabela shrugged. "She wanted to die when she thought she would be Tranquil forever. This is better than death, and better than being a meat puppet."

Fenris flinched. It was such a harsh way to think of Marian Hawke. She was always so alive. _"Festis bei umo canavarum,"_ he spat before saying. "Do it. Stop talking and just do it."

"Oh," Merrill said. "We hadn't thought about that. How can we do it? We can't carry her back to my clan in a jar." She tilted her head quizzically. "Can we?"

**"I will carry Compassion,"** Justice said.

_Wait a minute there,_ protested Anders. _I'm already past carrying capacity with you and you're stuck in here. I don't need a full time menage a trois!_

**"Anders fears that Compassion will become part of him as I have, but I am already here to prevent that. I believe that if we get to Hawke quickly enough, we can make the transfer. I will restore her connection to the Fade long enough for Compassion to join with her. From there, her connection will come through Compassion."**

Put that way it sounded almost like a religious experience. Anders was briefly jealous; he had a feeling Compassion would be much easier to get along with as a headmate than Justice.

The other spirits had faded away unnoticed while the companions debated, leaving them alone with Compassion. The spirit had moved to the middle of the mosaic of the Maker's symbol to await their decision. Justice moved to the spirit and folded her into the circle of his arms, drawing the embrace tighter until she melted through the front of Anders' coat and disappeared.

He staggered, reaching out for some support, finding it in Isabela's strong grip on his arm. "Don't you give out on us now," she admonished. "We still have to get you back to Hawke."

"Merrill, Fenris, we're going now. Let's find Feynriel."

For all that she had been willing to follow Hawke, and for this venture even to follow Justice, in this moment, her friends finally had a fleeting chance to see _Captain_ Isabela. 

• • •

Of the four of them, when they woke, Anders was the only one who did not feel as though he had gotten a good night's sleep. He felt as though a pair of ogres had decided to use his head as a ball, tossing it back and forth and frequently dropping it.

He also felt… overstuffed, like a sausage casing ready to split with the pressure of everything inside it slowly expanding as it cooked.

"Let's get back to Sundermount before I pop," he muttered, but standing proved to be more of a trial than he had expected.

Aveline and Fenris caught him before he could face plant and held him dangling between them.

Varric patted his arm. "Lucky for you, Blondie, I thought we might need to get back to Sundermount quickly and hired some horses. Maker, but Hawke is going to owe me if—when we get her back to herself. Now I remember why we walk everywhere. It cost almost as much to hire a team of horses as it did to finance a whole expedition into the Deep Roads."

"It may cost us more than sovereigns if we don't hurry," Aveline said as Anders tried to push himself to his feet only to have his knees give out, leaving him sagging between the two warriors.

"One dramatic race to the rescue coming up," Varric said, sweeping the door open to let them drag the mage out of the house toward the city stables.


	4. Chapter 4

Anders spent most of the ride to Sundermount riding pillion with Aveline. There was nothing even remotely romantic about being continually jounced against the woman's armor for mile after mile while his head did a credible impression of a soufflé slowly rising in the oven.

That would almost be an amusing image if he didn't know the common fate of mistreated soufflés.

What had happened to the Anders who had just wanted a bit of freedom, a good meal, and a pretty girl to kiss? Oh, right, he had decided to set up a rooming house for Fade spirits in his skull, because obviously there weren't enough brains rattling around in there to warrant single occupancy.

It was in this self-pitying – or was it self-flagellating? – mood that he made the trip to find Merrill's clan and the broken treasure they hid in their midst. If the others managed any conversation during their hard ride, he was in no condition to notice.

He couldn't bring himself to remember the name of the elves who helped him up into the aravel either. Lianne? Pel? Probably those names were wrong. It didn't matter. What mattered was Marian.

The emotions that tore through him seeing her again drove the breath out of him, seeing the brand on her forehead, seeing the blank calm in her eyes. He knew that the others were waiting for him to pull some amazing magic out of his arse, but it was all he could do to keep from weeping with the force of his sorrow, Justice's anger, and Compassion's sudden swell of, well, _compassion_ for this woman who should be so vibrant.

He felt the aravel sway as someone climbed up behind him. It was Merrill who took his hand and clasped his arm to helped him forward.

Leave it to the mages, hm? That was probably for the best.

"So, you can just go all sloshy now," she said anxiously. "And then let Compassion out?"

"I think that's the general idea," Anders said. And it was, but the hard part was that he had spent all this time struggling to keep Justice _in,_ not just let him out on a lark.

Right, so this was hardly a lark, was it?

He settled himself on his knees in front of Marian and took her hands. It was easier than he thought to let Justice have his way; all he had to do was look up into her empty eyes and then raise his gaze to the livid scar on her forehead.

Had she screamed when they used the lyrium brand on her forehead? Or was it already too late for her then? Had the Rite of Tranquility left her conscious to see the branding iron coming? Had she felt its heat as it approached her skin?

Who had held her still while she struggled? Had she cried out for her mother? Her brother? For her friends? For _Anders?_

His throat tightened with tears and with rage, the emotion growing, swelling, bursting over him in a wash of cold fire, Justice's words spilling from his mouth, **"I will see this wrong undone and end this crime against other innocent mages! I will kill them all. I will see the streets of Kirkwall run with the blood of all templars!"**

_Shh… _Compassion's voice was soft, a soothing caress after the rasp of Justice's ire. Anders felt the knot in his chest loosen, but he also felt Justice's rage draw back under the other spirit's touch. Yes, they would see the wrongs righted, but not all the templars were responsible, not all were complicit, and fear was a terrible motivator, it brought only more fear, and that would not bring justice.

"Oh." Merrill moved beside him. "Hawke?"

"Merrill, what's happening?" Marian pulled her hands from Anders' grip and cupped his cheeks, searching past the blue glow in his eyes for some sign of Anders. "Anders, are you in there? Don't go all Justice on me. We only have moments."

Too right. Not even enough time to explain, just enough time to rise on his knees and catch her cheeks between his hands just as she was holding his. Just enough time to kiss her and feel the spirit of Compassion leave him and pass to her.

Barely enough time to appreciate how _soft_ her lips were before he had to catch her as her body convulsed, her skin crackling with the blue power of the Fade, her eyes going wide, wider, the whites showing behind the flare of energy that lit them like beacons.

"Help me," he snapped to Merrill, but Merrill was the last person anyone should turn to for help in this kind of situation. She had absolutely _no_ aptitude for healing.

Merrill fluttered her hands helplessly, asking Anders questions he didn't hear while he tried to keep Marian from hurting herself. Thank the Maker the worst passed just as quickly as it came, leaving her limp in his arms, the glow extinguished. Anders and Merrill were nearly blinded in the sudden dim after the glare.

His heart stuttered with fear before he could determine that yes, she was still breathing, and yes, her heart was still beating. He remembered joining with Justice, it had knocked him on his arse.

"Just…." He shifted Marian to a one-armed hold and dug in the pockets lining the inside of his coat until he came out with a small pouch. "Brew this into a strong tea and bring it back to me. If this worked, she's going to have a thumper of a headache when she wakes up."

The others pounded the side of the aravel, demanding to know if Hawke was alright. Had it worked, was she okay, _answer the damned questions, mage!_

Ah, Fenris. Never change, just shut up and die.

"She's alive," he called. "Now shut up and let Merrill get that tea. I'll tell you when anything changes."

Merrill climbed out of the aravel, leaving Anders alone with Marian. He saw Aveline hoist herself up to peer inside and waved a hand at her. "Close the flap. The light hurt my eyes… after."

He settled Marian back on the aravel's floor, remembering the chaotic moments when he had wakened from his joining with Justice. The light had been wrong at first, Fade light was diffuse, sourceless. The disparity for Justice had added to the other discomforts and confusion when he/they had wakened. The least he could do was minimize the trauma, especially since he had done this to Marian against her will. At least she wouldn't have to kill anyone the way Anders had been forced to.

Aveline closed the flap, but not before Fenris climbed into the back of the aravel. He tried to peer past Anders to see Marian's face.

"I said she's alive," Anders snapped in a terse whisper. "She's going to be confused when she wakes." _We don't need you here._

Fenris stubbornly sat on the edge of one of the aravel's tiny bunks. "I am staying."

"So you can call her an abomination as soon as she wakes," he hissed at Fenris. "Do you think that's going to help her?"

"What's going to help us—me is not listening to you two argue," Marian murmured, raising a hand to cover her eyes. "Maker, my head feels like the day after one of Isabela's drinking games."

Anders shot Fenris a fierce glare before bending over Marian to release a thread of healing magic into her, seeing the tight lines around her mouth relax as it eased the pain. He had caught her slip between "us" and "me," and felt a twinge of regret for what he had done to her.

She put a hand out to touch Anders' hand and reached her other hand out to Fenris, wiggling her fingers in a _come here_ that the elf heeded. He slid down the bunk to lean closer, but she wiggled her fingers again until he was as close as the small aravel would permit.

Both men gasped when her hands shifted like striking snakes, dropping to Anders' and Fenris' groins and gripping just hard enough to threaten imminent pain.

"Now," she said quietly, holding the two men's personal prides with surprisingly implacable strength for someone who had just been through everything she had. "You two are going to tell me everything that happened, and please don't make me prove that I have my magic again, because I would be heartbroken if I had to freeze your balls off. I swear I would."

She squinted up at them and gave a crooked little smile. "I'd probably heal you after."

Fenris hissed and turned a hot glare on Anders. "You call this _compassion." _

Anders had gone utterly still. For one, she was touching somewhere he had only _dreamed_ to ever feel her hand. Sadly, for two, she was threatening to emasculate him, which might just be a fair sentence for what he had done to her.

Marian squeezed a little harder. "You can start with that."

Anders took a turn at hissing. "Hello, not wearing armor like the elf and I like those bits."

"Start talking," Marian said, still sounding utterly reasonable and calm. She usually tried to be reasonable and calm, other than her moments of incongruous and inappropriate humor with her friends, but she didn't generally grab men by their jolly rogers. At least not that Anders knew of outside of a few painfully detailed fantasies he had entertained.

"Did I hear…" Varric poked his head through the closed flap and froze, staring at the tableau. "Looks like I'm interrupting."

Marian didn't take her eyes off Anders. "If I had three hands I'd invite you in, but you'll just have to wait your turn."

"That's okay," he said, pulling back out of the aravel like a gopher popping back into its hole. They could just hear him say, "She's awake and I can't tell if she's _really_ happy to be back or about to turn the boys to sopranos."

"Hawke," Fenris said cautiously. "Do you remember being Tranquil?"

She nodded but didn't move her hands.

"Do you feel different?" he asked.

"Do you mean the spirit that has taken up residence inside me?" she asked, still calm.

Anders coughed.

"That's my fault," he admitted, bracing himself for the blast of cold that would take away one of his favorite late night diversions.

When it didn't come, he took a chance and kept going. "It was the only way to give you a connection to the Fade. It isn't a demon, and I think it won't be as hard to live with as Justice."

Fenris made a rude noise and winced when Marian squeezed him a little harder.

"You let him, didn't you?" she asked the elf. "We—I remember… you and Anders, Merrill and Isabela in the Fade."

He nodded. "We agreed together."

"And you're here to kill me if I'm an abomination," she said.

He looked down at her hand on his crotch and swallowed.

"I'll take that as a yes."

She looked momentarily stern before releasing them both with a little laugh. "I just can't. I wanted to make you both sweat for a while longer, but the looks on your faces… You both looked so scared for your male pride."

Anders gaped.

Fenris growled. "That was _not_ funny."

"Oh yes it was," Marian disagreed, trying to lever herself up and falling back with a grunt of pain. "Right. Not trying that just yet."

"It wasn't funny," Anders said, and shook his head at Fenris. "Don't get used to me agreeing with you."

Marian raised a hand to trace the brand on her forehead, looking momentarily haunted before she replaced the expression with her faint smile. "Messeres, do I need to remind you that I shouldn't be making any jokes at all? That makes it the best joke in all history."

She looked up at Fenris. "Unless Fenris kills me now, because that would make all of this a truly awful joke. Are you going to kill me?"

Fenris cut his eyes away from her and shook his head. "I cannot."

Anders let his breath out and muttered, "Where's Merrill with that tea?"

If this had been one of Varric's stories, she would have showed up on cue, but outside of Varric's stories water still took time to boil and only minutes had passed since she had left the aravel.

Marian patted his knee with one hand and Fenris' calf with the other. "Let me tell you what the spirit has told me and you two can tell me if any of it is untrue. If I can get you two to agree on it, it _has_ to be true."

"She has a point," Anders conceded.

Fenris looked down at the hand on his leg, expression shuttered. "Tell us."

"Good enough. It's a spirit of compassion. Justice took you all to find it in the Fade with…" She frowned. _"Feynriel?"_

Anders and Fenris nodded.

"Right. I'll want the rest of that story later. You all met with a bunch of spirits and Justice made his case for me." She smiled up at Anders and squeezed his knee. "And most of them denied you, but Compassion was moved by how much all of you cared for me."

She looked up at Fenris. "You let her touch you. For me."

Anders and Fenris both heard a ghostly overlay to her voice as she murmured, _"Thank you."_

An echo of Compassion.


	5. Chapter 5

The tea, Marian had informed Anders, was the real abomination in that aravel, not either of them. She had protested every drop of the hot liquid he had forced her to drink and finally, somehow, managed to convince him that he needed it every bit as much as she did.

Thus he was sitting around one of the Dalish campfires with the other half of the tea in a mug clutched in his hands while he waited for Marian to clean herself up and join them. It was possible she had a point, considering he had been carrying two spirits around and whinging to himself about the various food-items-on-the-brink-of-disaster he resembled. Looking back he was fairly certain he had compared himself to both a sausage and a soufflé. What next? Layer cake? Perhaps an Orlesian pastry?

Marian emerged from the aravel looking composed. She had arranged her hair to cover the brand on her forehead, but it peeked through the strands like a dark secret.

Varric beamed and held out his arms to her. "Hawke, I never thought I'd see you like this again. This will make the greatest story ever told."

She went to one knee to receive his embrace, holding the dwarf tightly, almost clinging. Anders had never in his life envied a dwarf as much in that moment as he did Varric.

"We'll talk about that," she promised him when she let him go, but she smiled warmly at her friend. "We'll talk about a lot of things tonight."

She gave him a peck on the cheek before standing up to let Aveline clasp her arm. She used the grip to pull the gruff guardswoman into a hug, although Anders could not see how hugging armor would do much for either of them. He had done it for the entire ride to Sundermount and if ever in his life he had found a woman less appealing, he couldn't think of it.

"Welcome back, Hawke," Aveline said, patting her awkwardly before they drew apart.

Marian smiled fondly and squeezed her armor one last time before letting her go. "It's good to be back. Thanks to you and the rest of the misfits."

Isabela pushed past Merrill to be the next to greet Marian – risen as she was from a fate far worse than death – holding out her arms to the woman and lifting her feet right off the ground when she moved into the offered hug.

"Maker, I missed you," Isabela confessed. "You have no idea how dreary these people are without you to beat some sense into them."

Marian laughed and clung to Isabela for a long moment that made Anders' thoughts drift to images of soft limbs intertwined, arms outstretched to welcome him into a dual embrace….

Justice stirred within him and he banished that image before it could take root too deeply.

"You crazy wench," Marian said on a laugh. "I can't believe you actually went into the Fade for me. What next? Random acts of kindness? Feeding beggars on the docks?"

Isabela made a rude noise and let Marian's feet touch the ground again. "Belay that. You'll give Varric ideas and the next thing you know, poof, my reputation is simply ruined!"

"Perish the thought!" Marian exclaimed, putting a hand over her heart before her expression sobered, leaving Anders to wonder how much she remembered of what Compassion had seen when she had touched Isabela.

Dear Maker, how much did she remember of what Compassion had seen when she had touched him? Er… Justice… Void take it, how much did she know of either of them?

She pressed a kiss to Isabela's cheek before she moved on to hold out her arms to Merrill.

"Merrill, what did you think of the Fade?" she asked as she drew the elf into a warm hug.

"It was brilliant, Hawke!" Merrill enthused, laying her cheek against Marian's chest. "First there were the demons and we fought them off and you should have seen Anders. And Isabela was so funny. And Fenris was so, well, you know, Fenris. And Feynriel helped us even though it was all so strange. And then we met all the spirits and they were just like you'd expect and now you're _back!" _

She turned a guileless look up to Marian. "Let's not ever do that again, shall we?"

Marian threw her head back and laughed. "You did brilliantly, I'm sure." She pressed a kiss to Merrill's forehead and took a step away. "Maybe it will teach you to keep better company."

"I still stay with you," Merrill retorted, making Marian laugh again before she turned her attention to Fenris.

Fenris made a show of checking his feet, brushing a bit of dirt off of one as Marian left Merrill to approach him.

"Fenris," she said almost tentatively, waiting for him to grudgingly meet her eyes. "Forgive me for the ice thing?"

He scowled and looked away before taking a sudden lurching step forward to grab her and pull her into his arms. "I thought I had lost you," he growled. "You will be the death of me, Hawke."

Anders' hands tightened on the mug. He would not be jealous, he would not be jealous, he would not… to the Void with it! He wanted to see Fenris explode in a shower of broody elf bits in that moment rather than watch him holding Marian like that, saying those words, wearing that expression.

This was the man who wanted to kill her not an hour ago, and now he was saying things that all but translated to _I love you! _

Anders _hated_ him.

Marian pressed a gentle kiss to Fenris' cheek, making the man stiffen and pull away from her. She patted his arm and leaned in to murmur something in his ear. Anders strained to hear, but his best guess was _"We need to talk." _

He spilled some of the tea when Fenris reached out to rearrange her bangs, concealing the Tranquil brand on her forehead for her.

She smiled for Fenris before she came to stand in front of Anders, taking the mug from his hands and setting it on the bench before holding out her arms to him.

It would serve her right if he didn't move. He could just sit right there and ignore the invitation to feel her arms around him, to smell her hair, to touch her cheek, perhaps feel her lips against his…

He was on his feet and drawing her into his arms before he could stop himself. To the Void with stubborn pride and with Justice's disapproval, he _needed_ this. He needed to have her warm in his embrace and responsive enough to press against him and hold him so tightly his breath caught.

She tilted her head up, still holding him tightly when she said in a murmur meant only for him – or perhaps for them, "Justice, we know your secret."

He gaped and felt Justice actually _squirm._

Her smile was mischievous, Anders could not tell if he was deceiving himself when he thought he saw a passing flicker of blue fire in her eyes before she kissed his lips, offering something far less chaste than she had given any of the others.

His jealousy melted away. Her lips were warm, her body was yielding against his, and if he moaned loudly enough for everyone to hear it, he could not bring himself to care. This was wrong and Justice still disapproved, but they had gone through so much for her, risked everything, and seen the worst of all fates; he could _not_ turn away from what she offered.

Isabela broke the moment. "I feel cheated now. Hawke, I want one of those."

Anders' head was swimming, but he thought he heard Merrill murmur, "Me too."

Marian pressed a last light kiss to his lips before clearing her throat and taking a step back. "Right, well… maybe next time we play diamondback."

Anders had to force himself not to reach for her and pull her back. His arms felt empty without her in them now and forever might just be long enough for that kiss to go on.

But he sat heavily back on the bench and swallowed the rest of the tea without tasting it. The overstretched feeling in his head had passed anyway, and if it had been replaced by an overstretched feeling anywhere else, he could be thankful that his coat and under-robe would keep that secret for him.

It was his bench she sat on, though, and it was his side she pressed against when everyone settled down around the fire.

She took a moment to fuss with her bangs to cover the Tranquil brand before looking around the circle of friends. "Thank you. All of you." She chewed on her lip and shuffled her foot in the dirt before she could look up again. "I…" She shook her head. "I don't have words to tell you all what a gift you've given me. Being Tranquil is like dying without the resolution of death."

She took Anders' hand without looking at him and squeezed it. Hard. "I wish we could help every mage who has been made Tranquil, but we can't just pull spirits out of the Fade to help every one of them. It would rupture the natural order of things. The only thing we can do is work toward making the Rite of Tranquility the last resort it is supposed to be again. There are templars who are violating the order's rules and they must be stopped."

"Take it to the Knight-Commander," Aveline offered. "She should know of her renegades."

"I think she already knows," Marian said. "No one said a word about performing the Rite on me. No one protested, even though I offered to undergo the Harrowing."

"Because you're an apostate," Anders said bitterly. "Do you all see how mad the Chantry system has become?"

He was gearing up for a rant, feeling one of those glorious moments when he and Justice were perfectly aligned, but Marian squeezed his hand and for an instant he felt the warm brush of the spirit within her that quelled his need for vengeance for what had been done to someone he l—yes, he _loved_ her.

No. Dear Maker, _they_ loved her.

She gave him a sidelong look and a crooked smile before going on. "There is one templar in particular who needs to be dealt with. He wants to make every mage Tranquil. I think I was just a step in his so-called Tranquil Solution."

"Ser Alrik," Anders snarled. "I should have known!"

"Ser Alrik," Marian confirmed. "He's the one who did this—" she touched the Tranquil brand, "—to me. He won't listen to reason, and I saw the madness in his eyes. He won't stop with me, and I've never heard of another mage with friends as mad as mine to repair the harm he does. The only way to stop him is to see him on a funeral pyre."

_Yes!_ thought Anders.

"Looks like the spirit isn't making her soft after all," Isabela said to fill the silence after Marian's proclamation.

"You're talking assassination of a templar," Aveline protested. "Are you certain we can't take this to the Knight-Commander?"

Marian sighed. "I wish we could. I wish I trusted Meredith to be reasonable, but even if I did, how am I supposed to go to her and show her what I've become? As far as all of Kirkwall is concerned outside of you, my closest friends, I am Tranquil. That is how it must be. Otherwise the Chantry will want to see me dead not just because I'm an abomination, but because I might make other people who have lost loved ones try something as crazy as you all did."

She turned her attention to Varric. "That means you don't get to tell this story yet. I'm not saying you have to sit on it forever, but you can _not_ hint that I'm anything but what the brand says I am. It's our secret weapon. No one even looks twice at a Tranquil."

"Hawke," Varric said uncomfortably. "I don't like where you're going with this. I know stories and I see visions of mad infiltrations and subversive plots in our future."

Marian grinned. "It's like you're a Rivaini fortuneteller, because that's exactly what the future holds. I'm going back to Kirkwall, and I'm going back to the Gallows."

"What?"

"No!"

"You cannot!"

"Are you mad?"

"Over my dead body!"

"Hawke!"

She waited for the protests to subside. "I have to. I need to see Carver and there is no better way to see what is happening behind those walls than this. I tell you this is perfect. The Tranquil are invisible. Everyone considers them completely harmless – cut off from their magic, from their emotions, perfectly obedient."

"How are you going to manage to fool them?" Aveline asked. "You wouldn't know obedience if it bashed you over the head."

Marian moved her bangs to display the Tranquil brand. "Like this. Do you expect a dog to meow? A fish to walk past you in the Hanged Man? No. And no one will expect a Tranquil to have a thought in her head that wasn't given to her."

"I don't like it," Anders said. "We went through all this to get you out of the Gallows and you want to just walk back in there."

"I don't like it either," she confessed. "But you all went through all this to give me a gift, and I just can't let it go to waste. I couldn't live with myself if I knew that I could do something and I didn't."

She turned her head to meet Anders' eyes. "Could you?"

_Void._ How he hated it when she was right.


	6. Chapter 6

What was it Fenris had said? _"You will be the death of me, Hawke."_ The damned broody elf might actually be right about something for a change.

The most dangerous part of Hawke's plan was concocting a cock and bull story to explain how a Tranquil mage just disappears from the Gallows for two days and then just reappears pretty as you please. That would be why, now that they had smuggled Marian back into Kirkwall, they were waiting in Anders' clinic for one last person to join them.

"Once you're back inside," Aveline said for what felt like the tenth time, "what are you going to do?"

Marian fiddled with the hood of her robe, pushing it back to clear her peripheral vision before pulling it forward again to cover her forehead and the brand. "First I'm going to find out who is with Ser Alrik. I want to see which templars can be trusted to do what is right, and I want to know who falls in between."

Anders listened while he tore strips of donated cloth into bandages, swept, paced, rearranged his meager stock of herbs and tinctures, paced, and yes, paced some more. They were taking action against the templars, he should be pleased, but that didn't stop the creeping fear he had for Marian.

"Couldn't you just ask your brother?" asked Aveline. Anders cheered her silently, glad that someone else didn't want Marian going back into the Gallows.

"Yes," said Carver, looming in the clinic door in his templar armor. "Couldn't you just ask me? Or am I not good enough for you?"

Hawke went still before turning toward her brother with all the eagerness of a condemned man facing the noose.

"Carver," she breathed before crossing the room almost at a run to throw her arms around him.

The look of shock on his face was nearly comical. He patted her back once before putting his hands on her shoulders and pushing her away.

"Blight, they really did it," he said in something like awe. Then, to Anders' surprise, he scowled. "If anyone could manage to escape Tranquility it would be you. You never could let well enough alone."

Marian took a step back, tilting her head up at her brother, frowning. "So sorry, brother. Did you like me better the other way? No more worrying about big sis stealing your thunder?"

Anders wondered how one family could produce two such different people. He had met Leandra and she was a good woman. Carver was, as Aveline put it, a tit.

Carver's face flushed a hectic red. "I didn't—"

"Yes you did," Marian said, folding her arms as though to protect herself.

Anders held his breath, darting a look to see the others watching Carver with barely restrained hostility. Aveline moved to stand behind Marian before Marian glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. This was between her and her brother.

"I got you out of there, didn't I?" he snapped. "I'm risking everything again just being here, but nothing's ever good enough for the great _Hawke." _

"Carver…." She unfolded her arms and held her hands out to him. "Thank you for getting me out of the Gallows, and thank you for protecting me. _Thank you._ But this isn't helping. Can you stop acting like I did this to make your life harder? I'm not the one who made me Tranquil and I wasn't the one who came up with a mad scheme to do something no one has ever managed before and make me _not_ Tranquil."

"About that," Carver said, still looking as welcoming as a lump of stone – the kind that always tears up your hands when you fall on it, Anders thought, " How did they do it?"

"It's a long story," Marian said. "Involving ancient elven magic, apostate mages, crazy friends, jaunts to the Fade, a somniari, Justice, and Compassion. One of these days I'll let Varric tell it properly for me."

Carver narrowed his eyes before suddenly reaching out to push her hood off her forehead. "Mother can't see that," he said, indicating the brand.

"I know," Marian said. "Have you seen her? Does she know…?"

"That you're 'Tranquil.'" He snorted derisively. "Some Tranquil you are. Yes, I saw her. They sent me to the estate to look for you. I had to tell her what happened and I wasn't alone, so I couldn't even tell her that you were safe."

Hawke looked down and away, whispering something Anders couldn't hear.

"How did she take it?" Carver asked, responding to her whisper. "How do you think she took it? She was devastated. Then she blamed me. She said it was my fault for drawing attention to the family by becoming a templar. She didn't even think about all the ways _you_ were always drawing attention to yourself."

"I have to see her," Marian said, barely loud enough for Anders to hear this time. "I can't let her think I'm…. I have to see her. I need my other staff, my robes. I need to replace everything the templars took from me when they took me."

"No." Carver's tone was implacable. "No, you can't go to the estate. You can't see Mother. They've stationed a templar inside the estate in case someone brings you there."

"I have to see her!" Marian shouted, startling everyone with her ferocity. "I can't leave her grieving me!"

She tried to push past him toward the clinic door, but Carver caught her arm.

"Let me go," she snarled, jerking her arm out of his grasp. Her eyes flared with blue fire and Anders saw the first crackles of Fade energy dance along her arms.

Carver stumbled back, looking at his sister with horror. "What did they do to you?"

Anders hurried forward to intervene.

"We'll help you," he murmured in her ear, calming her the way he might a patient in pain. "We won't leave Leandra alone in this, but you have to calm yourself. I know it's hard, but you have to. Be. Calm."

While he spoke he drew her away from Carver, putting himself against her back and using an arm around her waist to draw her back step by step. He had never trusted her brother, and since he became a templar, as far as Anders was concerned he was an enemy who just hadn't hoisted the flag of war yet.

Varric came to their rescue, knowing that none of them trusted Carver with the secret that his sister was an abomination.

"The Fade connection isn't stable," he lied smoothly. "Like the lady said, it was a mad scheme. We might as well have chopped her hand off, sewed it back on, and expected her to play the lute. We did the best we could, but she's going to need time to adjust."

"I'll say," Carver agreed, still watching Marian while Anders soothed her and the blue fire faded away. "Looks like I'm not the only one with a temper now."

Marian shook in Anders' hold, but she managed to get herself back under control. She forced a smile and let her weight rest against him. "Oops," she said. "I think I'm sloshing a little. Getting Fade all over the place, I hope I didn't ruin your rug, Anders."

Anders instantly regretted that Merrill had told Marian the story of how it was Justice "sloshing" out of Anders onto Marian that had given them the seed of the idea of how to help her.

"Sweetheart," he joked, looking down at the clinic's dirt floor, "I will get a rug just so you can slosh on it."

Isabela wolf whistled. "Can I watch? Will you do that electricity thing?"

Hawke sounded more like herself as she said, "Please stop talking. Now."

She looked back at her brother. "You're right, I can't see Mother, but you can." She hurried to go on when he frowned. "Take her a letter. Mother raised two apostates, I know we can trust her to keep a secret. Just let me send her a letter letting her know that I'm me and not Tranquil, and you could put my things down in the cellar and I'll go in through the secret passage to get them."

She bit her lip and used the one weapon her brother was particularly weak against. "Please?" 

• • •

After Marian's display of Compassion, there was no way any of her friends were going to let her go through with her plan to infiltrate the Gallows. Once Carver was sent on his way with a letter for Leandra and a list of equipment for Marian, they gathered to talk some sense into her.

"The first time you see something that makes you feel like you just _have_ to stop someone's suffering, you're going to lose it," Varric stated while the others nodded in agreement. "It was a good idea, Hawke, a heroic idea, but I'll tie you down myself if you try to follow through with it."

"I'll check the knots," Isabela offered. "Just to be sure."

"And I will guard the door," Fenris added.

"Face it, Hawke," Aveline said. "This is too dangerous. You aren't stable and you would undo everything we've done for you if you got caught in the Gallows."

"There are other ways," Anders offered. "The mage underground knows of Ser Alrik, and I know a way into the Gallows that won't get her caught. We could go together that way." He clenched his hands into fists. "Even if we don't do it Hawke's way, he has to be stopped. He is the worst of the templars and his Tranquil Solution will see every mage made Tranquil, whether they've survived their Harrowing or not."

They could all see Marian trying to find a way to argue them out of their decision, but eventually she slumped and said, "Fine. We'll do it your way, Anders. Just as soon as I have my staff and equipment."

"Tomorrow," Isabela said firmly. "I am not fighting templars when my arse feels blistered from those blighted horses."

"I thought you'd be used to a blistered arse, Rivaini," Varric joked.

"I could blister your arse," she retorted, mock-punching his shoulder. "But for you I would charge."

Varric made a show of rubbing his shoulder. "Too rich for my blood. I already spent all the coin I won off you and Fenris in diamondback on those horses."

"We could all use some rest," Aveline agreed. "And I should check in on my men." She laid a hand on Marian's shoulder. "Tomorrow, Hawke. Ser Alrik will be too busy chasing your shadow to make anyone Tranquil before then."

Anders sighed with relief. Ser Alrik was a menace, but he was a powerful menace. They would all need to be at their best to confront the man and survive. Maker knew he hated templars, but he feared them. A mage who did not fear templars with their power to drain away a magic user's mana was a fool. A dead or Tranquil one.

He found it in himself to smile and turned to rummage a jar of salve from his supplies, tossing to Isabela. "For the blisters. Maybe you can find someone to rub it on for you."

Isabela snatched it out of the air. "Thanks." She cast a glance around the circle of friends. "So, who wants to help me with my saddle sores? Varric?"

Varric shook his head. "Bianca would be jealous."

"Fenris?"

The elf cut his eyes over to Marian and shook his head.

Isabela raised an eyebrow at Aveline before shaking her head. "Not you, big girl, I think I'd come out the worse for wear with that one. That leaves you, Merrill."

Merrill blinked in surprise. "Me? But um… I'm no good at healing."

"That's okay, kitten," Isabela said, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the door. "You just have to be good at following directions."

Varric watched the two women go before clearing his throat. "And on that note, I'll be getting back to the Hanged Man. I'll keep my ears open for any stories about missing Tranquil. We'll see how locked down the templars are keeping this."

He clasped Marian's shoulder. "Will you be okay?"

She put a hand over his. "I'll stay here with Anders. It's the safest place for me right now, and you know what they say, two apostates are better than one."

He chuckled and squeezed her shoulder. "Try not to blow anything up without me, Hawke."

"I'll see what I can do."

Aveline shifted uncomfortably before walking after Varric. "Tomorrow, Hawke."

"I wouldn't miss it," Marian called after her.

Fenris remained, making a show of paying most of his attention to his feet. Shifting his balance, shuffling his bare feet in the dirt, picking them up to brush bits of grit off the soles before putting them down again to get dirty just as soon as they touched the ground.

"Fenris?" Marian asked. "Shouldn't you go get some rest, too?"

"I want to talk to you. Without _him,"_ he said, pointing a finger at Anders.

"Well excuse me, but this is my clinic," Anders said, folding his arms. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Anders, please?"

Those blue eyes could almost make a templar melt, and Anders was not as hard-hearted as a templar. He sighed and said, "Fine."

He waited outside the doors to the clinic, straining to hear anything from inside, but all he heard was the low rumble of Fenris speaking and Marian's lighter tones responding. It was a serious discussion with no laughter or even that tone he associated with Marian's teasing, but neither raised their voices in anger.

When the conversation stopped, he peeked around the corner to see Marian standing, her arms around Fenris. His heart sank when she drew back to kiss him, holding his face still with her palms on his cheeks. His pulse roared in his ears in a fury of jealousy before the two parted and he pulled his head back before either saw that he had been watching.

He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to think of anything else – kittens, puppies, templars exploding in sprays of blood, but nothing helped. He could see Marian kissing Fenris the way she had kissed Anders in the Dalish camp. He wanted to scream, _it's not fair!_ But who was he to say what was fair when it came to her heart?

He didn't hear Fenris' footsteps; the elf moved lightly for a warrior, his armor made no sound.

"Be good to her," Fenris growled, making Anders' eyes snap open, his pulse race with surprise. "Break her heart and I will kill you."

Anders could see in the man's eyes that it was an absolute promise. He swallowed and nodded. Fenris sneered and stalked away.

"Anders?" Marian called. "Could you come here?"


	7. Chapter 7

_AN: This chapter had some explicit(ish) sex that I cut for the sake of ff net's TOS. If you want to see it, you can find the link to my LJ in my profile._

* * *

><p>Anders couldn't bring himself to return to the clinic where he had just seen Marian kissing Fenris. Even the elf's words to him couldn't calm the acid seething of jealousy the sight had set boiling in his guts. Fenris would kill him if Anders broke <em>her<em> heart? What about _his_heart?

He would go to the Void and back for Marian Hawke, but surely a man had to have some limits. Somewhere? Right…?

He jumped when she put her hand on his arm. "Did you know," she asked, "that you get a line right here…" She touched the top of his nose. "When you sulk?"

"I am not sulking," he said.

Sulkily.

Marian laughed, or tried to, and slipped her arm through his, tugging him away from the clinic door toward a mostly blocked passage that was visible from where they stood.

"Wait." He pulled back against the tugging. "I can't just leave the clinic unlocked."

"Then lock up," she said in her most reasonable, _I'm humoring you,_tones. "And then come with me."

"No."

That surprised them both.

"No?"

"No, I'm not coming with you. If you want to tell me you prefer Fenris or that you love us both but 'you just can't decide' or try to talk us into some Orlesian threesome with the elf that hates everything we are, the answer is just no." He folded his arms and gave her a stern look he had learned as a Gray Warden. "No."

She tilted her head and slowly smiled. "Anders, I do love Fenris, but not the way he wants, and I don't want an Orlesian threesome." Her smile turned cheeky. "I was much more interested in a foursome."

"You what?" Anders gaped at her until she reached up and put fingers under his chin to close his mouth.

"You don't think we have a foursome right here?" she asked. "You, me, Justice, and Compassion. So will you stop sulking now, lock up, and come with me?"

"Ah…" he found himself tongue-tied and settled for pulling out his key and pulling the clinic door closed, leaving Marian to extinguish the lantern outside the clinic that indicated that the healer was present.

"Where are we going?" he asked when he returned to her and she again took his arm.

"I bet you didn't know that you're almost directly under my estate," she said with a sly grin, helping him pick his way through the rubble and duck the fallen support beams that mostly blocked the entrance she pulled him into.

It was right outside his clinic, how he had never known this was here?

"Up the ladder," she said, motioning to the rickety thing that sat amid the rubble.

He raised an eyebrow and held out a hand. "Ladies first."

"You just want to see up my robe," she accused.

"Guilty."

She laughed and hitched up her robe enough to show most of her calves and, Maker, a glimpse of the tender white skin at the back of her knee. Anders had to force down the image of putting his mouth right there, holding her leg to keep her from squirming away while he licked and sucked.

_Down, boy. _

"The estate's cellars are through here," she explained when she reached the top of the ladder and stretched her arm out into the shadows to her right, feeling around until she could pull one loose brick free and fish out a key from the declivity behind it. "And now you know how to get in."

Right. He was focused on the hidden key, not her legs up above him and he certainly wasn't straining to see if he could get a glimpse a little higher than just her knee. He also wasn't entertaining the idea of summoning just a _tiny_bit of light to… er… better illuminate things for her. To help her unlock the trap door above her head of course, not for any more personal reasons.

He grimaced at the welling of disapproval from the corner of his mind that was Justice. _Shut up, Justice._He didn't do it; he just thought it. A man should be allowed a little bit of fantasizing.

She unlocked the trap door before replacing the key and climbing the last few rungs up to the room above. She helped him up and somehow her hand slipped down from his arm. He found himself folding her slim fingers in his own, almost like a normal pair of lovers sneaking to a secret trysting space.

The cellar was huge, rooms spreading out and away from the alcove they climbed up through. Mostly they held crates of supplies, but a rather shocking amount huge wine casks as well. Maker, what did the Amells ever need that much wine for?

He let Marian lead him farther into the cellar until the sound of whistling made her put a finger to her lips and pull Anders behind one of the casks. Peeking around the huge barrel, Anders saw the dwarf, Bodahn, who seemed to function as Marian's butler. He was carrying a staff and heavy sack, whistling to himself. He turned before reaching their hiding place and went up a flight of stairs with his load.

Marian held Anders in place until they heard Bodahn return, this time without his burden of staff or sack. He returned the way he came and Marian waited until they heard the sound of a door closing upstairs before she tugged Anders out of their hiding place.

"The vault's up there," she explained, leading him to the stairs. "We can be safe and private in there. And it looks like Bodahn dropped off the things from the list I gave Carver. That was definitely my staff."

Anders stopped at the door to the vault and frowned. "Is that an ogre skull?" he asked incredulously.

"Hm?" She glanced up at the horned skull over the door. "Oh, yes. Mother said something about my great-uncle killing it, but I don't know the story. He was a mage, too. Our family has been magical for generations. It would have made me a poor marriage match even before I became an abomination."

This time she bent down by his feet and moved another brick, removing the vault key and unlocking the door. She threw it open and held out her arm with a flourish to show him the Hawke treasure vault.

"You should have seen it when Carver and I came here the first time," she said as she followed him into the room, locking the door behind them. "It was bare compared to this."

There were chests, their heavy locks looking as though they would present a challenge even to Isabela's light fingers, wardrobes stood against three walls, and everywhere there were souvenirs of Hawke's adventures in Kirkwall and the Deep Roads. Glinting sets of armor, swords, knives that rippled when he looked at them too closely, their enchantment making the air shimmer like desert air under a burning sun. Piles of furs taken from smugglers, boxes of spices releasing a scent that reminded him of other times and other places.

It was like being transported into some tale of pirate treasure rooms or dragon hoards albeit without the loose piles of gold sovereigns everywhere.

Marian stood in the middle of the room and did a pirouette. "My ill-gotten gains."

Her smile slipped as she looked at the piled riches and disappeared when she saw where Bodahn had propped her staff. She took it in hand, caressing the studded wood in a way that roused a tingle of jealousy from Anders.

It had been _far_too long if he was jealous of a piece of wood. He had never been the jealous type in his wilder youth. He did not particularly like the sensation now.

The staff was a wicked-looking weapon. Tipped at one end with a human skull and at the other end with a long blade with saw teeth on the last foot or so. It looked like everything an apostate's staff should be. Marian held it like a lost part of herself.

"It's a cold thing," she murmured. "Not like Parlathan. Parlathan is all fire." She raised it high in one hand and filled the air with the chill of magic coalescing in the staff, sending wisps of steam off its blade as it gathered a rime of frost. "But they took Parlathan from me."

She slammed it down and thrust the power out into the room, turning the air bitter cold for a fleeting instant before she pulled the magic back into herself.

Anders raised his hand and summoned fire, chasing back the chill with gentle heat. Closing the distance between them, he put his hand on her staff, letting the warmth he had summoned run lightly along its surface, melting the frost, dancing along her blue fingers to coax blood back into them.

He let the fire go and pried her fingers carefully off the staff's shaft, noting how they shook when they had nothing to cling to. When he'd gotten the staff out of her grip he propped it against the wall and cautiously gathered her into his arms, feeling her trembling and cold against him.

His plans to confront her about kissing Fenris evaporated like the last remnants of the magical frost.

"I thought it was gone forever," she whispered. "In that last moment before the Rite was complete, when I could feel it like a dragon dropping on me out of the sky. I screamed because I thought I would never feel my magic again."

She fisted her hands in his coat and shook harder. "And he laughed at me."

Justice swelled in him, joined with Anders' own rage at the thought of anyone cutting away Marian's Maker-given gift and _laughing. _

She thumped a fist against his chest. "Don't you dare."

"What?"

She thumped him again. "Don't you make this about how angry you are." She turned her face up to him to let him see her eyes, shining with tears just waiting to spill down her cheeks. "Just be my safe place for a little while."

He swallowed hard, forcing down the lump of anger in his throat, pushing back the rage that he wanted to wallow in, _requiring_ Justice to see that she was right. She deserved what she was asking for. It was _just._

Then he held her while she wept. He held her until the sobs made her start to slide to the floor, then he picked her up and settled into one of the piles of furs, cradling her against his chest like a child. He held her and murmured the meaningless things universal to times like those. _Shh… I'm here. You're safe. Shh… _

Her sobs slowed to hiccups, her hiccups slowed to sniffles, and finally she lay in Anders' arms only occasionally catching her breath in hitching jerks. When the hitches finally stopped, she sat up and scrubbed her face on her sleeve.

"Not very attractive, I bet," she said, rubbing her eyes.

Her face had hectic red splotches, her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, her nose a brilliant red, but Anders shook his head. "You are still the most beautiful woman I have ever known."

The corners of her mouth twitched with her attempt at a smile before she kissed him. It was tender only until the surprise passed, then Anders twined his fingers in her hair and took it deeper, moaning into her mouth when she parted her lips to let him taste her, to press his tongue deep into her mouth, feeling his need for her as a physical ache now.

Marian broke first, panting for breath. "Can't breathe through my nose yet," she apologized.

Anders brushed a thumb over her cheekbone. "I can find ways to work around that," he promised.

He started with the soft line of her jaw, tracing it with his lips. Maker, how he had dreamed of this, burned for this. It might all end in tears, but he needed her like he needed his next breath.

She tipped her head back, sighing, murmuring his name. Perhaps he shouldn't be doing this with a woman who had just been sobbing in his arms, but he trusted Hawke to be clear with her limits. Even if she made them clear by breaking the hand he slid up her ribs to cup her breast, it would be worth it.

She did not break his hand, only sighed again and shifted her weight in his lap, making him groan. He muffled it against her throat, kissing the long line she had exposed when she tilted her head back.

Justice was a faint clamor in his mind, like a distant tocsin warning him that they were in dangerous waters. Didn't he just know it.

He raised his head to see her face.

"I love you, you know." His heart clenched and almost stopped from making that admission. He had just opened himself – and Justice – to a world of vulnerability. It went against everything he had learned in the Circle.

She licked her lips as though he had brought her back to herself and nodded. "I know." She brushed away a strand of hair that had escaped his ponytail. "And because he won't admit it, I'll say it for him. I know that Justice loves me, too."

Anders froze. Justice twisted. "Wha—"

"Compassion saw it in the Fade. She saw you all." She laughed softly. "I know more about you four than I ever thought I would know. Justice is why she agreed to come. If it had been just four mortals who loved me, she might have stayed to do her duty in the Fade, but a spirit of Justice that…."

She unconsciously touched the brand on her forehead, her fingers tracing the sunburst before she caught herself and dropped her hand.

"Justice said it himself, living outside the Fade changes one, and she wanted to be here for him. I think now she's getting a taste of how that change happens."

Anders was still having a little trouble making the transition for imminent sexytimes to serious conversation, but he was doing his best to keep up. Thank Andraste, Marian was merciful.

"We can talk about it later," she said, grinning that crooked grin of hers that he always wanted to kiss. "Long story short, you love me, Justice loves me, I love you, and Compassion loves… pretty much everyone. And she's not a stick in the mud about sex."

She tapped him on the nose. "Let that be an object lesson, Justice. Sex is a good thing, so don't get in Anders' way because I'm about to take off my robe."

She was about to… Maker, _yes! _

• • •

Later, when they lay lazily entwined, Anders was driven to finally ask the question that had been nagging at him. "Why did you kiss Fenris like that?"

She lazily combed her fingers through his hair, reminding him that if he was going to get even semi-regular sex he should wash it more often.

"I kissed him because I love him, but we are _never_going to be lovers. It would be worse than a disaster, but I thought that if I loved you, you loved me, and you told me that we could never be together, I would want at least one kiss to remember. So I gave him that."

She leaned up on her elbow and took in the look on his face. He couldn't see it, but he knew it wasn't a happy look. "Anders, I love Merrill and Isabela, too. And I love Aveline and Varric, but they don't love me that way so it's easier. Isabela hates the word love and she won't pine. Merrill will let me treat her like a little sister instead of a lover. Fenris is the only one I had to confront it with directly, so I did. He respects directness."

She grinned and poked him in the chest. "Name one thing Fenris and I have in common other than sex appeal."

Anders pinched her thigh. "I can't think of a single thing other than that you both breathe."

She giggled. Actually _giggled._How could she giggle when she just admitted to loving another man? "You just admitted Fenris has sex appeal. Now name five things you and I have in common."

He held up his closed fist and poked out his thumb. "We're mages."

He held up his first finger. "We both have live-in Fade spirits."

He held up his second finger. "We both want freedom for mages."

He held up his third finger. "We're both likely to say inappropriate things."

He opened his hand. "We both have tremendous sex appeal."

She pulled him down and nipped his earlobe. "Anders, I want to be with you. Not Fenris. So you and Justice can stop being such jealous creatures. And you forgot to mention another thing we have in common right now. We're both naked. And I still want to know if the stories about Gray Warden endurance are fact or fiction."


	8. Chapter 8

It took her friends working together to talk Marian down from another mad plan to get into the Gallows alone.

"But I can go in through the tunnels Anders told us about," she protested over a breakfast shared in the clinic's back room. "I just need the element of surprise."

"Who's going to be better at the element of surprise," Varric asked. "The mage or the templar hunters who are as good at appearing out of thin air as Isabela over there?" He jerked a thumb toward the pirate in question.

"Those tunnels are swarming with lyrium smugglers," Anders warned. "Carta thugs. Even if you pull the 'Don't mind me, I'm Tranquil' act on them, they might just want to sell you to some slavers." Maker knew she was beautiful enough. "I try not to go into those tunnels without other members of the mage underground and I know the tunnels. It's just too bloody dangerous solo."

And if she thought he was going to let her go down there alone after last night, she was madder than he was. Which, come to think of it, might be saying something.

"I will not allow you to go alone," Fenris said, leaning in to put a finger in Marian's face. "We have all done too much for you in recent days for you to just throw that away. If you insist on this madness, I _will_accompany you."

"You aren't leaving me behind," Anders said quickly. He let memories of the night with Marian quell his jealousy of Fenris, but even that couldn't extinguish it entirely.

The elf could never understand her the way they – the way _he_did.

"You'll be needing someone good with traps," Varric said. "No offense to you, Rivaini, but you get distracted by shiny things and _boom!_ someone steps on a trap, and _then_you remember to mention it to them."

Aveline scowled, having been on the receiving end of spikes through her boot only to hear Isabela blithely point out the trap after the fact.

Isabela shrugged. "Priorities. Traps are less interesting than treasure."

Marian sighed. "If we need more than the four of us, it will be more than a raid, it will be a war. Looks like it's me, Fenris, Anders, and Varric. Aveline, would you go check on my mother? It will look good for the templars and it would help me to know she's holding on."

Isabela slung a companionable arm over Merrill's shoulders. "Looks like it's just you and me, kitten. There's more of Anders' salve left."

Anders raised an eyebrow while Merrill turned a delicate shade of pink and became very interested in her feet, checking the soles for dirt in that cute habit she shared with Fenris. It looked like the elf had gotten over the little sister thing from Marian already.

He had never been worried about Isabela. As Marian said, Isabela wouldn't pine.

Aveline nodded. "I can do that. If you need help, I'll be back at the keep after I see your mother."

Marian clasped hands with Aveline before she left and gave Isabela a grin that said she knew exactly what the woman had planned for Anders' salve. She watched Isabela and Merrill leave with a fond smile before Varric touched her elbow to draw her away from Anders and Fenris.

Not far enough that the two men couldn't hear everything they said.

"You and Whatshisname," Varric jerked his chin toward Anders, "seem to be getting pretty close. So, what's going on, Hawke?"

Since when was that any of Varric's business, Anders thought. He shot a glance at Fenris and saw the elf was riveted on the conversation.

Marian tried to deflect with humor. "Well, well, well, I never thought you were the type, Varric. I'm flattered."

"Hawke, I know I'm damned near irresistible, but you're just too high-maintenance for me. Sorry." Varric rubbed his forehead as though the whole thing gave him a headache. "Listen, as your friend, I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't say something. Maybe, just maybe, getting involved with the possessed mage might be dangerous. There, I've said my piece."

"I'm right here, you know," Anders grumbled, but Marian just waved a hand back at him to indicate she could manage this herself.

"In all the time that you've known me, have I ever given you the impression that I was turned off by crazy?" she asked him with a grin. "Besides, Varric, I'm a possessed mage now, too. It's kind of a perfect match when you think about it."

Fenris made a noise that Anders thought was a barely suppressed growl.

Varric laughed. "Okay, point taken."

"Good," Anders said. "Because that was bloody rude."

Varric shrugged, "Hate to break it to you, Blondie but you're a little unstable."

"It's crossed my mind," Anders said wryly, and to drive the attempt at humor home, he added, "Minds."

Marian made a face. "This is all wonderful and I'm sure we will come out of this even better friends than before, but can we get moving?"

She snatched her staff up from where it leaned against the wall, checked her belt to ensure that both potions and grenades were within easy reach and strode toward the door, stopping when Fenris put an arm out across her chest to block her.

The elf pulled her hood up and arranged it to hide the livid brand on her forehead before letting her go. It was a tender gesture despite his loathing of mages and abominations and despite what Marian had told him the night before.

If Anders didn't despise him, he might have pitied him.

She smiled and touched Fenris' chin with her fingertips for a moment before leading her companions out of the clinic and through Darktown's narrow passages toward the smuggler's tunnel where Anders had told them they would find their way into the Gallows.

• • •

What was there to be said about the trip through the tunnels? There were lyrium smugglers, and they were just as relentless and sturdy as Anders had ever expected from dwarven criminals. They were there to supply the templars' ever-growing lyrium addiction, above and beyond what the Chantry subsidized.

They fought mercilessly, swarming the companions without giving them time to catch their breaths.

Marian and Anders fought smoothly together, staves moving almost in unison as though choreographed – left, right, _slam_into the ground to launch ice and fire in deadly lines along the stone floor. Anders thought it was almost as good as sex to move so perfectly together. Almost. When Marian paused to raise her voice in a shout that brought fire raining down from the roof, Anders swept his arms out, sending healing magic through his allies while their enemies foundered around them. Varric showed no sign of caring that his foes were fellow dwarves as Bianca spat bolt after bolt, piercing armor and raining showers of bolts down on their enemies.

And Fenris… _Fenris_swept through them in a wave of deceptive calm. His great sword cleared circles of dwaves around him, the only sound from him low murmurs of Arcanum, observations that sounded contemptuous despite the language barrier. He glowed with lyrium fire.

Without Fenris, they might have been lost.

When the last of the smuggler foremen had fallen, Anders stopped to catch his breath, hands on his knees while his head swam from the expenditure of power and Justice's barely restrained need to be unleashed.

"So, Hawke," Varric panted while he wiped blood off Bianca's stock. "How does wholesale slaughter line up with the whole Compassion thing? Because I'm not really seeing it so far."

Marian sank down on a set of stairs and mopped sweat off her face with her sleeve. "It's like this – in the Fade, Compassion can be compassionate for everyone. This world is just an idea for spirits. But here, the reality is you have to pick and choose and when it comes to life or death, _I_choose compassion for myself before the people trying to kill me."

"What about the templars?" Fenris asked, looking up from rummaging through another fallen templar's belongings.

"Compassion for the mages they're hurting," Marian replied without a pause to consider. "Not least of all for myself." Her next words seemed to come to her unbidden, quoting something, perhaps from Compassion, "'It is possible to travel the whole world in search of one who is more worthy of compassion than oneself. No such person can be found.'"

She shrugged. "It's all well and good to be compassionate for everyone when you're in the Fade, but in this world we have no choice but to choose sides, and I choose me, and all the people like me. I regret the deaths, but I just have to remember the other people I'm helping along the way."

Anders felt a swell of – pride? – from Justice that matched the warmth he felt hearing Marian's words. Who knew, perhaps a hundred years from now, their children might love without fear. It made everything they fought for so worth the sacrifices both of them would have to make.

Marian took a deep breath to gather her strength and pushed herself up.

"Stop slacking, you three," she scolded with a grin. "Let's go show those templars some compassion."

• • •

They heard the woman's voice before they rounded the corner into an open cavern. "No, please! I haven't done anything wrong."

"That's a lie," purred a man's voice.

Anders' lips drew back from his teeth in a silent snarl. He recognized Ser Alrik's voice, and based on Marian's sudden tension, so did she.

"What do we do to mages who lie?" Ser Alrik said. He could afford to be smug against a single mage with his loyal compatriots around him – templars, hunters, and archers all focused on one weak mage.

"I just wanted to see my mum," protested the woman. "No one ever told her where they were taking me."

Anders felt the electric swell of Justice's rage, rising in response to his own hatred for the templar. "No. No," he said aloud, trying to quell the spill of anger before it was too late. "This is their place. We cannot—"

Ser Alrik went on, still unaware of the observers. "So, you admit your attempt at escape. You know what happens to mage girls who don't toe the line around here. Don't you?"

A glance at Marian showed her expression drawn tight with anger and memory. Her knuckles were white where she clenched her staff.

"Please, no!" The girl went to her knees, pleading. "Don't make me Tranquil!"

Behind him, he heard Fenris loosen his sword in its sheath and Varric muttered, "Over my dead body."

"I'll do anything!"

"That's right," Ser Alrik replied, smugness oozing from his voice. "Once you're Tranquil, you'll do anything I ask."

Before Anders could lose himself in Justice's fury, Marian pushed forward into the cavern. "Get your hands off her!"

**"You fiends will never touch a mage again!"** Justice snarled, winning out over Anders' will at last with the question of whether Ser Alrik had made Marian do anything he had asked the way he threatened this girl. **"They will die! I will have every last templar for these abuses!"**

Marian slammed her staff into the floor. "We'll kill them all," she swore, her eyes on Ser Alrik, lighting with an incandescence to match Justice's. _"I promise."_

Varric whistled under his breath. "Shit just got real," he muttered, bringing up Bianca to shower bolts down on the templars.

Fenris pushed past Marian and Anders, putting himself between the two mages and the templars as the fight moved into overdrive. His sword swung, cutting indiscriminately into armor and flesh alike, slamming one man in the head with the pommel before he pushed him back with a kick to his chest and leapt into the air to pierce another templar's chest with the full length of his blade.

He jerked it free and whirled to find his next target while Bianca barked a trio of bolts out into Ser Alrik's chest. Marian's voice rose above the sudden chaos, singing out a spell that sent bolts of lightning jumping from one armored man to the next. Justice's shout cut through the clamor, preceding a rain of molten rage from the ceiling onto the templars.

Varric jerked the back of Marian's robe, pulling her back as more templars joined their companions. He pulled her back into the tunnel that had led into the templars' cavern to keep them from being flanked, but she barely noticed in her spirit-ridden state. Her voice rose again to join Justice's rain of fire with a storm of lightning that danced mercilessly from one armored figure to the next, taking advantage of the templars' love of heavy mail.

She screamed when a templar hunter slid out of the shadows to bury twin knives in her back, drawing Justice's attention while Varric shouted "Hawke!"

Before either man could react, she spun, thrusting out a hand to wrap him in a mantle of ice. Varric pulled a thicker bolt from his quiver – one of Bianca's "lances" – and hit the hunter with a punch that shattered both the ice and the flesh beneath it.

Marian flashed him a grin despite the inhuman blue blaze of her eyes and returned to raining elemental chaos down on the templars.

Minutes, hours, _days_later, when all had fallen, Anders' blood still sang with Justice's rage. The girl still crouched in fear away from the worst of the fighting. He advanced on her, meaning to help her, but….

**"Every one of them will feel Justice's burn,"**Justice proclaimed from his lips.

"Get away from me, demon!" the girl cried.

**"I am no demon!,"** Justice growled. **"Are you one of them that you would call me such?"**

"Anders," Marian said, coming closer, reaching out to him. "That girl is a mage. We rescued her from being made Tranquil."

**"She is theirs. I can feel their hold on her!"**

Marian took another step toward him. "She's the reason we're fighting, Anders. Don't turn on her now."

The girl went to her knees. "Please, messere!"

Justice drew his hand back to smite her, but Marian laid a hand on his arm and the blue incandescence that had painted her skin rippled out, dancing against the cold blue that crackled along Ander's arm.

_"No,"_ she said in a voice that echoed with a memory of the Fade, _"No, Justice. This is not right."_

He paused, then staggered, the crystalline brilliance winking out before Anders went to his knees.

Marian, only herself again without Compassion's manifestation, sank down with him and wrapped her arms around him.

"Maker, no," he moaned. "I almost—if you weren't here…."

She held him even when he tried to get away, trying to protest that he needed to get out of there. "No, Anders. I'm not going anywhere."

"How can you stay?" he asked, turning in her arms to cling to her. "I am a monster."

"No." She dropped to her bum and pulled him down against her, heedless of the blood and slaughter around them, ignoring Varric as he went to check on the mage girl who had run from Justice's display, dismissing Fenris' glower without a glance. "No, Anders. I'm not leaving you. I'm never leaving."

"But why?" he asked, letting her draw him down despite his need to flee the place where he had nearly become something so much worse than a man ridden by a Fade spirit. "How can you tolerate this? That was not Justice, that was Vengeance."

How? How can she stay when she can see the demon he has almost become?

"Because, love," she said, putting a hand to his cheek to make him see her eyes, clear of fear or anger, "Vengeance is Justice without Compassion."


End file.
